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University of Maine School of Law

Articles 61 - 69 of 69

Full-Text Articles in Land Use Law

Model Cities, Senator Muskie And Creative Federalism, Donald E. Nicoll Jan 2017

Model Cities, Senator Muskie And Creative Federalism, Donald E. Nicoll

Maine Law Review

The odd couple partnership of Senator Edmund S. Muskie and President Lyndon B. Johnson in the passage of the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966 is a story with several subplots and insights into their different approaches to the art of democratic governance. For Senator Muskie, the president’s proposal was based on valid concepts, but he doubted the legislation’s viability in the Senate and he had serious reservations about its timeliness and capacity to address the problems the legislation was supposed to solve. The President was determined that the ambitious initiative, developed by a secret task force he …

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Edmund Muskie's Creative Federalism And Urban Development Today, Peter Pitegoff Jan 2017

Edmund Muskie's Creative Federalism And Urban Development Today, Peter Pitegoff

Maine Law Review

How fitting it is to view urban development policy today with reference to Edmund Muskie and his role as U.S. Senator from Maine in the 1966 enactment of the Model Cities Program. The University of Maine School of Law is honored that the Maine Law Review 2014 symposium is part of this centennial celebration of Ed Muskie’s life and work. His wide-ranging career brought Muskie from Maine—where he served as state legislator and Governor—to national and global affairs as Senator, Secretary of State, and Vice Presidential nominee, and in other prominent leadership roles. We are fortunate to welcome Don Nicoll …

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Maine's Open Lands: Public Use Of Private Land, The Right To Roam And The Right To Exclude, Peter H. Kenlan Jan 2017

Maine's Open Lands: Public Use Of Private Land, The Right To Roam And The Right To Exclude, Peter H. Kenlan

Maine Law Review

On a late summer afternoon, a boy pilots a small boat toward a deserted beach while another crouches in the bow with an anchor poised and ready. As the boat gently scrapes to a halt, the anchor lands in the wet sand with a dull thud and the two boys splash ashore. Equipped only with peanut butter sandwiches, they set off along the beach looking for tide pools. Behind them, they leave only a few ephemeral footprints--readily erased by the waves. On a bright and clear February morning, a man rides his snowmobile along a well-traveled trail. The scenery flashes …

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Lotting Large: The Phenomenon Of Minimum Lot Size Laws, Paul Boudreaux Jan 2017

Lotting Large: The Phenomenon Of Minimum Lot Size Laws, Paul Boudreaux

Maine Law Review

A dominant feature of American metropolitan areas is large lot zoning—the policy through which only house lots of a minimum size are permitted. This practice of "lotting large" contributes greatly to the sprawling nature of American suburbs. By restraining the supply of housing, large lot zoning laws please existing suburban homeowners. But they harm all other segments of the American populace, including the million new households who seek a home in the United States each year. This article explains how courts have been unwilling or unable to impose any meaningful restraints on local governments. It develops a simple economic model …

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Community Development Law, Economic Justice, And The Legal Academy, Peter R. Pitegoff Jan 2017

Community Development Law, Economic Justice, And The Legal Academy, Peter R. Pitegoff

Faculty Publications

The evolution of community economic development (CED) over the past several decades has witnessed dramatic growth in scale and complexity. New approaches to development and related lawyering, and to philosophies underlying these approaches, challenge us to reimagine the framework of CED. From the early days of community development corporations to today’s sophisticated tools of finance and organization, this evolution reflects “why law matters” in pursuit of economic justice and opportunity. Change is visible in new approaches to enterprise development and novel grassroots initiatives that comprise a virtual “sharing economy,” as well as intensified advocacy around low-wage work and efforts to …

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Ultra Vires Land Use Regulations: A Special Case In Substantive Due Process, Daniel A. Himebaugh Apr 2016

Ultra Vires Land Use Regulations: A Special Case In Substantive Due Process, Daniel A. Himebaugh

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

The U.S. Supreme Court’s land use jurisprudence establishes that arbitrary land use regulations violate the doctrine of substantive due process. Ultra vires land use regulations-those regulations that exceed the delegated authority of the regulating agency under state law-represent a particular type of arbitrary land use regulation. Lower federal courts that have examined such regulations are split on the question whether they violate substantive due process. This article contrasts two federal court of appeals cases in which property owners alleged that a local government agency deprived them of property without due process of law by enforcing an ultra vires land use …

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Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination And Segregation Through Physical Design Of The Built Environment, Sarah B. Schindler Jan 2015

Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination And Segregation Through Physical Design Of The Built Environment, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

The built environment is characterized by man-made physical features that make it difficult for certain individuals — often poor people and people of color — to access certain places. Bridges were designed to be so low that buses could not pass under them in order to prevent people of color from accessing a public beach. Walls, fences, and highways separate historically white neighborhoods from historically black ones. Wealthy communities have declined to be served by public transit so as to make it difficult for individuals from poorer areas to access their neighborhoods. Although the law has addressed the exclusionary impacts …

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Unpermitted Urban Agriculture: Transgressive Actions, Changing Norms And The Local Food Movement, Sarah B. Schindler Apr 2014

Unpermitted Urban Agriculture: Transgressive Actions, Changing Norms And The Local Food Movement, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Roberta keeps four chickens in her backyard. Bob snuck onto the vacant lot next door, which the bank foreclosed upon and now owns, and planted a vegetable garden. Vien operates an occasional underground restaurant from his friends’ microbrewery after beer-making operations cease for the day. The common thread tying these actions together is that they are unauthorized; they are being undertaken in violation of existing laws and often norms. In this Article, I explore ideas surrounding the overlap between food policy and land use law, specifically the transgressive1 actions that people living in urban and suburban communities are undertaking to …

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The Future Of Abandoned Big Box Stores : Legal Solutions To The Legacies Of Poor Planning Decisions, Sarah B. Schindler Apr 2012

The Future Of Abandoned Big Box Stores : Legal Solutions To The Legacies Of Poor Planning Decisions, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Big box stores, the defining retail shopping location for the majority of American suburbs, are being abandoned at alarming rates, due in part to the economic downturn. These empty stores impose numerous negative externalities on the communities in which they are located, including blight, reduced property values, loss of tax revenue, environmental problems, and a decrease in social capital. While scholars have generated and critiqued prospective solutions to prevent abandonment of big box stores, this Article asserts that local zoning ordinances can alleviate the harms imposed by the thousands of existing, vacant big boxes. Because local governments control land use …

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